I heard the same story (I joined in 2004). The version I heard was that Jeff was driving cross-country NY -> Seattle and was on the phone with his lawyer about incorporation papers, and the lawyer misheard “Cadabra” as “Cadaver”. That's when Jeff knew he needed a better name.

This instantly reminded me of the story about Microsoft posting a dev a dead fish.

https://olhardigital.com.br/en/2020/05/23/news/the-strange-s...

This is not the most interesting story about Scott Forstall and Microsoft. Did you know he invented WordArt?

https://twitter.com/natbro/status/1339600779531833344

That's an interesting story, but that article and others on the site have weird issues that can't be put down as non-native English. Extra words that make no sense (Steve Jobs founded us), and phrases added into the ends of sentences along with spacing/punctuation mistakes (But please, pretend you’re interested in everyone’s questions, ”Jobs said at the time, as carry* the website Windows Central.*) Odd issues to see on a news website. Also, all postings are double-dated, once within the text and once after.

Indeed, Jeff talks about it in this 2001 interview : https://youtu.be/p7FgXSoqfnI?t=7m05s

It's also harder to spell. Some people are going to put an extra d or b in there. Maybe get a vowel wrong.

I sat through a talk by Jeff Bozos where he said the same thing, that to register his company he was talking on the phone to his lawyer and the lawyer asked what he wanted his company name to be and Jeff said Cadabra (telling the audience like Abra Cadabra) whereupon the Lawyer said Cadaver which made Bozo develop cold feet.